EBSO Announces 100 Major Industrial Enterprises of 2019

Announcing the EBSO's list of 100 Largest Industrial Enterprises according to from Production to Sales, which has been prepared for 38 years, Chairman of the Board Ender Yorgancılar said that production and exports are the future of Turkey, and that especially food, agriculture and agro-based industries will gain much more importance.

 

Ender Yorgancılar, Chairman of the Board of the Aegean Region Chamber of Industry, announced the 100 Largest Industrial Enterprises in 2019 according to from Production to Sales. TÜPRAŞ, which was last year's champion, maintained its leadership in the list

 

At the meeting held in the EBSO Assembly Hall, Chairman of the Board of Directors Yorgancılar made evaluations on different issues from national and international economic data to the COVID-19 outbreak. Stating that the investment and production issues have been discussed from the beginning during the pandemic process, Yorgancılar underlined that the borrowing, which has become intense, is the biggest risk at the macro level from firms to national economies in the upcoming period.

 

 

Yorgancılar, who stated that investments in Turkey fell by 12.4 percent compared to the previous year, said: “The year 2019 was not easy for the industrialist. As of the third month of this year, the extraordinary process due to the virus outbreak has begun. Firms tried to fudge the day with the equipment in their hands. Facilitating the announcement of the concordat caused problems in the receivables. Exporters, on the other hand, came out of this crisis with the least damage due to the advantage stemming from exchange rate increases.”

 

 

President Yorgancılar stated that production and exports, especially food, agriculture and agriculture-based industry branches are the future of Turkey, “In 2019, the real sector was quite difficult due to global and national macro conditions. This, in turn, reflected the situation of 100 large industrial enterprises. As a result of our survey work, which we have conducted for 38 years as EBSO, 64 of the 100 firms produce only in Izmir, while 24 firms are headquartered in Izmir and continue their production outside of Izmir as well. 15 firms entered our 100 list for the first time this year. While 84 firms out of 100 declared a profit, 17 firms declared a loss. The sum of the production-to-sale ratio of the chemical and chemical products, food and iron and steel sectors exceeds 78 percent.” he said.

 

 

Emphasizing that there was a 27 percent decrease in the gross profit rates of the firms, while the number of employees increased by 10 percent, Chairman Yorgancılar said, “We regret to see that an investment of around 35 per thousand is still made in terms of investment in R&D. When we look at the investment rates in R&D, it is understood that we need to go further for high value-added production,”

 

 

Chairman Yorgancılar, who stated that the amount of investments in machinery and equipment is an important indicator of production in a country, said: “We regret to see that there is a decline in these investments. This indicates that production is declining. Unemployment figures have also increased from 10.5 percent since 2010 to 13.3% today. So there's been a drop of about 40 percent. Our way of growth and production is unfortunately not creating jobs,”

 

 

Emphasizing that Turkey should create a new economic program, EBSO Chairman Ender Yorgancılar said: “We need to focus on employment-creating areas such as agriculture and tourism. We need to move on to contractual farming. A farmer doesn't know how much to sell what he produces. We submitted a report to the Minister of Agriculture on these issues. Our second proposal should be to reduce the debts of banks, firms and citizens. For this, long-term credit and new supports based on exports should be sustainable. We must improve the environment for foreign direct investments. And we need to explain the incentive system for foreigners. We have to start an export mobilization. A one-year employment continuation incentive must be given to protect employment. In other words, the company should be told ‘You do not lay off workers, I will pay this amount of insurance premium per worker’. The receivables of the firms from the government should be paid by one of the methods such as bonds or bills if there is no cash.